Would anyone be surprised if a nuke hit us, even one of our own? You shouldn’t be.
The clowns running the American Show have made countless errors in protocol and even in sales to other countries that I am not surprised there hasn’t been some devastating accident, or worse.
US told Taiwan ‘dump missile fuses’
The US asked Taiwanese officials to dispose of missile parts it had mistakenly shipped to the island’s armed forces and only asked for them back when they realised they were highly-sensitive nuclear warhead fuses, a senior Taiwanese defence official has said.
The revelation is likely to add to the already considerable US embarassment over the parts blunder.
Four of the cone-shaped fuses were sent to Taiwan in late 2006 instead of helicopter batteries that had been ordered.
The error was only discovered last week.
Duh?
The 55cm-long fuses, which reportedly bear no similarity to helicopter batteries, have since been returned to the US.
Robert Gates, the defence secretary, has ordered an urgent investigation into the error and a through review of policies and procedures related to the country’s nuclear weapons, a senior Pentagon official told reporters on Tuesday.
“Those who are responsible will be held accountable,” said Ryan Henry, principal deputy undersecretary of defence for policy. “The secretary is quite forceful on this.”
China, which strongly opposes US arms sales to Taiwan was also informed of the error, he said.
Well, excuse me if I don’t believe you, in light of all the fuck-ups the administration has conducted with EVERY action it carries out. Worthless and incompetent.
We are being transparent. We have corrected the situation,” he said, admitting that the error was “disconcerting”.
Speaking to reporters, Henry said that in an organisation the size of the US military, mistakes would be made, but that such errors could not be tolerated when they fall in the area of nuclear-related weapons systems.
He said the nose cone and fuse systems were classified but the technology they use dates from the 1960s.
However, Hans Kristensen, an expert at the Federation of American Scientists, told the AFP news agency that the fuses, even if dated, were “hugely important” nuclear weapons components.
For a country like China, that is trying to develop more capable systems, that would be very important material to get. And (for) any country that is even lower on the nuclear threshold scale, having not quite gotten there, would be potentially even more important.”
So, not only is it dubious and dangerous to mistakenly send these parts that look nothing alike (I am sure the storage shelves of nuclear components and batteries are stored side by side) to an ally who has 70 missiles aimed at them, ready to be annihilated, but they also don’t want China to get their mitts on these parts to reverse engineer them. Safety, safety, safety.
The incident was the second major nuclear security breach in less than a year.
Last October it emerged that six nuclear-armed cruise missiles had been flown across the US attached to the wing of a B-52 bomber. The crew were not aware they had been carrying nuclear weapons.
An investigation concluded that the mistaken transfer had resulted from “a series of procedural breakdowns and human errors,” Pentagon officials later admitted.
So with the privatization of our forces, what is the chance that a contractor is to blame? Would we ever hear about it? Do all you rednecks feel secure with knowing these nitwits are making all these devastating mistakes?
In the Taiwan case officials said they did not know as yet how it took so long for the error to have come to light.
The fuses are supposed to be subject to quarterly inventory inspections.
But instead the mistake was only revealed last week following months of discussion with Taiwanese authorities over the missing helicopter batteries they had ordered.
The fuses involved do not themselves contain nuclear material but are housed in the nose cones fitted to nuclear warheads on Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles.
They are used to ignite the trigger which then detonates the warhead.
Cool! Nuclear triggers went missing for 1.5 years and no one noticed, but “by God, where are our batteries?”
Let me wager a guess that it would take less than 1.5 years to reverse engineer that technology.
We are led by a group of idiots, rednecks!
buelahman
lrose48